The Falling Winds
by Unknown Soldier Shadow
Summary: Set during the events of Sunrise. Cinderheart is left broken after the death of her sister. Seeking revenge on the adder that claimed Honeyfern's life, Cinderheart goes to the one cat she trust unconditionally despite everything: Lionblaze. Oneshot.


_Already my gaze is upon the hill, the sunny one,_  
_at the end of the path which I've only just begun._  
_So we are grasped, by that which we could not grasp,_  
_at such great distance, so fully manifest—_

_and it changes us, even when we do not reach it,_  
_into something that, hardly sensing it, we already are;_  
_a sign appears, echoing our own sign..._  
_But what we sense is **the falling winds.**_

- Rainer Maria Rilke

* * *

_"Honeyfern!" _Cinderheart launched herself across the clearing towards her sister's prone body, hoping against hope that what she'd seen was not real, that an adder hadn't just sank its fangs into her sister's body and flooded her veins with its deadly poison.

"Help me," Honeyfern rasped, her voice deathly unstable. Her entire body was shaking, her eyes wide, the white visible all the way around the blue. "My blood is on fire! Help me, _please!_ It hurts so much!"

Cinderheart's eyes went to Leafpool desperately. _You're a medicine cat, _she thought wildly, her voice somehow lost in the terror of this moment. Ice had formed in her chest, turning her breath to splinters. _You have to help her. Please help her. She's my sister. _

But Leafpool didn't. She stepped back, her head bowed.

Sorreltail turned on her immediately, her voice a high yowl.

Cinderheart couldn't understand a word of it. She didn't understand anything. Every sound was muffled, as if she were deep underwater. Her eyes were locked on Honeyfern as Berrynose whispered gently in her ear, soft loving things, beautiful things. Agony was raw as a wound in his voice, and in his eyes.

Honeyfern had stopped moving but she was still alive. Her breath had stilled and her blue eyes had glazed but she was alive. Just barely. Her mouth formed words that her broken, losing body couldn't create.

With one final rasping gasp, the light left her eyes, slowly and easily as falling asleep. Her eyes drifted to half-closed slits, and her mouth fell open just a bit, as if she were surprised. Berrynose had her pressed desperately against his chest, his words fading to breathless whispers.

And then she was gone.

Cinderheart bowed her head, her eyes closed tightly shut, at the sound of Sorreltail's horrified, drawn-out wail, at Brackenfur's choked exclamations. Numbness went through her, as if she were feeling Honeyfern's poison, as if it were strong enough to affect everyone in the area. It must have been, since there was no sound. It was still and quiet as the night wind, and just as cold.

Someone came up to her. A soft press of black fur, a flash of green eyes. Hollyleaf. She said something but Cinderheart couldn't hear. No words reached her so deeply beneath the water.

Her paws moved before she was aware of it, carrying her out of the camp, out into the forest. The cool, clean green of it closed around her in a sun-dappled curtain but for the first time in her life, it didn't soothe her. Nothing could soothe her. She was in agony. She must be dying because nothing in her life had ever hurt this badly.

_Molepaw was first, _she thought blankly, her legs working strongly, her claws ripping up the turf. ThunderClan territory ripped past her, a blur of dark green and brown. _He died too soon, too. And Brackenfur's sister Cinderpelt. Rainwhisker too. And now Honeyfern. How many more of our family will die before this is finished? Why won't StarClan have mercy on us? Haven't we suffered enough?_

WindClan territory rose up out of the forest ahead of her, a pale grayish stretch of wilderness. Cinderheart stopped at the crest of the hill, right on the border, and stared out into that blankness, feeling the wind lift her gray fur but feeling nothing, not even the cold. StarClan, she was so numb.

She turned towards the dying sun, which had turned the lake red as blood. The first warriors of StarClan were visible, glinting blankly out in the lavender sky, cold and unfeeling and distant as the stars they were.

And Cinderheart screamed out into that unfeeling sky.

It was a long wordless sound, excruciating like a physical wound. It tore her heart, her lungs, her throat, turning the blood in her veins into fractured ice. Every grief and every hurt and every feeling of abandonment she'd ever felt was in that sound, and it still did not soothe her.

Eventually her voice gave out with a pitiful cracking gasp. She fell silent, her throat dry as sun-baked sand, her heart beating onward, traitorously strong while her sister's was still.

It wasn't fair. Nothing was fair.

Cinderheart squeezed her eyes shut and tried not to think.

All her life, she'd been confused. Everything in her was muddled, cloudy water. Nothing had ever been clear and distinct.

Honeyfern was a brilliant shaft of light in that darkness. She'd led Cinderheart through life, joy in her step, every inch of her vibrant and alive as new apple blossoms. Every confusion Cinderheart had, Honeyfern had chased away with a word, a joke, a laugh.

Now Cinderheart could feel Honeyfern in everything.

Her laugh was the wind. The sound of her steps were the drifting leaf-fall leaves. Her scent was the bark on the rowans, drying after the light rain. Each was a separate point, a different aspect, like widely-spaced stars, like the warriors of the past looking down on her without pity.

But nothing would ever put those pieces back together.

"Cinderheart?"

She was buried so deep within her grief that she hadn't even noticed pawsteps approach. Without even looking up, she knew who it was.

"I need to be alone, Lionblaze," she said; her voice cracked like dry mud. "Please."

He stopped behind her.

The wind gusted his scent to her, low and earthy. ThunderClan, through and through. Her eyes closed as she breathed in it: his scent, her scent, Honeyfern's scent. They were all the same, all linked so close to the earth, to the ground, warm even in leaf-fall, tinged with the smell of drying leaves and misting rain and minerals.

"Cinderheart," he said, his voice so low. "Please… I'm worried about you. Let me just stay here, with you. Please."

Cinderheart turned to look at him.

Grief made him small. He looked so young, his ears at a slant, his golden eyes soft. The wind lifted his fur in tufts, ruffling it into waves. His stance, usually so powerful, like a lion's, was hunched and fragile.

Her throat closed up.

Soundlessly, he approached her, his head low as if he were worried she would strike him. The thought of touching a single hair on his pelt was repulsive. She would never be angry enough, furious at life enough, to raise a paw against him. Never.

Warmth touched her side as he sat next to her, shoulder-to-shoulder. He was taller than her, and far more powerful, his muscles hard with strength. The tips of her ears touched his chin.

Lionblaze didn't say a word.

Cinderheart waited for him to, even held her breath. But he had his eyes fixed on the setting sun, his expression withdrawn, empty, blank with shock. He'd been right there, right up next to her when she'd been struck. He'd had the best view of Honeyfern's death.

"I'm sorry," he said gently, his voice barely louder than the sighing waves of the lake. "No cat deserved that. Especially not Honeyfern."

"I…" Her voice was still missing, still small. Almost silently, she said, "I couldn't save her." She couldn't bring herself to say the name. "I was right there and I couldn't…I didn't…"

Lionblaze touched his nose to the top of her head and she leaned into his shoulder, soaking up the warmth of his pelt. The simple comfort of touch was enough to steady her heartbeat, to bring breath back into her empty lungs.

"It wasn't your fault," Lionblaze said, his voice uneven, resting his cheek on top of her head. "You did everything you could."

_No, _she thought. _I didn't. _

The image of Honeyfern lying there on the ground flashed in her mind again, along with that confused tangle of thought that always followed the sight of an injured cat. _Borage for the fever caused by the venom—chamomile for the heart—chervil for infection of the bite—cobwebs for the bleeding—snakeroot to draw the venom out—tansy for curing the wound._

All those thoughts had coursed through her head and not a single one had done anything to save her sister. She'd stood, rapt with terror and disbelief, as Honeyfern had simply faded away, drawn along to the stars on a tide of agony.

Lionblaze touched his muzzle to hers, so softly. "Cinderheart." Just that. Just her name. He whispered it, like a secret. Like it was something precious.

Cinderheart closed her eyes. "I have to…do something. I need your help."

Lionblaze turned slowly, dipping his head down to hers. One bright gold eye met hers steadily.

"Anything," he said.

XXXXXXXXXX

The hollow at dawn was dyed pink and gray. The sun caught along the very top of it, a deep orangey red, which slowly bled down by inches to the bottom. Every cat was asleep, still resting peacefully, unaware that two cats were very awake just outside the camp, hunting a murderer.

Cinderheart waited in the hunting crouch, her eyes fixed on the crack in the stone ahead of her. The trees sighed in the dawn wind, bringing with them the chill of leaf-bare, but she didn't move. She held completely, agonizingly still, as still as Honeyfern had laid, venom coursing through her veins.

Lionblaze was at her side, uncharacteristically patient. "It will come after the prey," he whispered.

Cinderheart nodded, her eyes fixed on the wandering mouse ahead of them. They'd caught it this morning and trapped it in the sandpit they'd dug earlier in the night. Cinderheart had filled it full of beech seeds, to keep the mouse ready, until its hunter showed up.

The Clan had tried to kill the snake several times already but they all had failed. A piece of fresh-kill stuffed with deathberries hadn't done the trick. The snake was like a cat: it wanted fresh blood. Patrols were told to look out for it, to make sure it didn't come back into camp, but that wasn't enough for Cinderheart. She wanted to see it. She wanted to kill it. It needed to be dead, killed as mercilessly as it had killed her sister.

Lionblaze had agreed to help her kill the snake immediately. "If I had gone after it in the first place, Honeyfern wouldn't have died," he'd said on the way. "I'll help you hunt it down until either it's dead or I am."

He'd help her so much already, calming her down by the lakeside. And now he was helping her again.

Cinderheart watched him from the corners of her eyes. He was so handsome, his golden fur shining like sunfire. He looked like his grandfather, like Firestar. Strong and powerful. A leader. And he would make a marvelous leader one day. Lionblaze was completely fearless. Cinderheart in her whole life had never met a warrior like that.

He turned and met her eyes, as if he'd read her mind. They were separated by a screen of dying brambles, and the curved brown thorns stabbed at her image of him, slicing out pieces of him. He was just a huge shoulder, a splash of golden fur, a single golden eye shining in the darkness, and the smell of turned earth.

And Cinderheart could not look away.

The words fell from her mouth unbidden, a whisper. "Do you believe in StarClan, Lionblaze?"

He blinked once. "Yes, of course. Every warrior does."

Cinderheart licked her dry lips. Through the tightness in her chest, she asked, her voice a gasp, "Do you think Honeyfern is there?"

Lionblaze's eyes turned so soft. Warm liquid sunlight. "Absolutely," he said, no trace of doubt in his voice. "I refuse to believe in a StarClan where loyal warriors aren't welcomed. She gave her life for Briarkit. Nothing's more loyal than that. Nothing deserves eternity more than that."

Cinderheart breathed out once, a great rush of air. She knew, she _knew, _that Honeyfern had to be in StarClan. She just had to have confirmation from someone else.

Lionblaze's eyes flashed to the sandpit, where motion had flickered.

The mouse had finished off its seeds and was cleaning its whiskers with its forepaws, quick strokes. It finished, twitching its small nose, and went to dash out of the pit.

Cinderheart hissed. _No. _

This wasn't going to happen. Not after everything she'd done, everything she'd gone through. She wasn't going to let it.

Cinderheart had already moved forward a step when Lionblaze pushed her back. She turned on him, desperation in every motion, but he shook his head sharply.

He nudged her head, his muzzle brushing hers again. _Look, _the gesture said.

Cinderheart looked.

Like a shadow, the snake came. It crawled on its belly, down in the dust like an insect. Its eyes were two dull river stones. Its hide was a gradient of grays: a dark slash zigzagged down its spine, danger in every point. Its head was fat and round, its nostrils like pinpricks. When it turned its head, a thin needle-like tongue flicked out, forked at the tip.

Cinderheart fell deeper into her crouch. "That's it," she hissed.

Lionblaze nodded. His presence was a warm cloud against her side, blocking the wind from pressing against her. "A little longer."

Cinderheart let out a low keen, her claws sinking into the soil.

The snake flicked out its tongue again, sliding closer, its body hissing along the pine needles. The mouse cleaned itself, unaware of the danger lurking just behind it.

Cinderheart found herself urging the snake on. _Go. Get it. Attack it. Kill it. Like you killed my sister. And then I'll kill you. _

It had reached the edge of the pit now. A few more kittensteps and it would be in the open, right in striking distance.

Her toes strained as she leaned forward, her ears pointing straight ahead, her eyes locked on the snake's progress.

There was a change in the wind, a trace shift. Cinderheart smelled it before she felt it; it brought the acrid scent of ShadowClan to her nose.

And to the mouse's.

Its furry gray head lifted, every nerve in it alert. Cinderheart moved forward, desperate for it to stay, and it saw her. Its eyes fixed on her, pink nose twitching.

And then it bolted.

"No!" Cinderheart yowled, throwing herself out of her hiding place, forgetting for a moment the danger that was so close by, that gray death waiting for its next meal.

But Lionblaze did not forget.

He was a bolt of lightning, a flash of sunlight, as he pounced. His claws bit into the snake's back without finding purchase.

The adder whipped around, its body a tight coil, and struck out at him.

"No!" Cinderheart abandoned the mouse and ran to Lionblaze. _I have lost Honeyfern but I will not lose you. _

He danced gracefully back out of the way and lashed out again. This time he did not miss.

Lionblaze met her eyes briefly as she ran to him, alarm raising the hair along his back. "Stay away! It can't hurt me! It can't hurt me!" he shouted but she ignored him.

The snake's hide tasted like foul, burning leaves. Its cold blood coated her tongue and the inside of her mouth.

It struck out at her with a furious hiss, missing her cheek by a whisker-width.

Lionblaze screeched his fury. One of his huge paws reached out and cuffed the adder, slicing deeply into its pale belly, into where its lifeblood thrummed. His claws glinted in the dawn light.

Cinderheart watched with cathartic glee, feeling energy light every step. She half-expected it to glow out of her eyes, like will o' the wisps, scorching the snake to ashes.

With one furious snarl, Lionblaze captured it beneath his paws, holding its deadly head hard against the ground. The snake's body thrashed, its long tail whipping to wrap around Lionblaze's chest like a vine. It sank into his golden chest fur, which bunched up around the scales like overgrown grass. The inside of its mouth was pink, surprising Cinderheart; she'd thought it would be black as death.

"I have it," Lionblaze panted, his mouth hanging open, his teeth bared. Ready to strike. But he didn't.

Cinderheart approached, foul blood on her lips. She waited for him to make the killing blow.

Lionblaze met her eyes evenly over his trapped prey. Blood flecked his cheek and his chin, darker than cat blood.

_Oh, _she thought, realization racing down her spine in a hot bloom.

He was leaving this for her. This healing. It was all for her.

"You could do it," she said, without quite realizing she was speaking. "You're the one who wanted to."

Lionblaze didn't argue. "I do want to."

"Then do it. What are you waiting for?" Cinderheart felt a pulse of something deep within her mind, that dark shadowy corner of it. Another half-obscured memory that she didn't remember.

_A badger's huge black head pokes in the medicine den, its nose wiggling. It approaches, blunt teeth bared, thick claws gleaming in the half-light. Death is in its eyes. It blocks out the sun. _

She shook her head to clear it.

Lionblaze said, "This isn't about me. This isn't about the Clan. This is about you, Cinderheart."

"But the Clan—"

"_You_ are the only one I care about right now." His claws flexed, pinning the snake more securely. "And I can't bear to see you like this anymore. If killing this snake will make you feel better, will bring you back to the cat I know, then do it. Do anything. I'll help you. Anything you want, I'll do it. Just please, _please _come back to me, Cinderheart. I feel like I've lost you."

Cinderheart's throat felt small as a pinprick. "Do…do you mean that?"

He nodded, never moving his eyes from her. She couldn't look away even if she'd wanted to. He captivated her, holding her in place as if he'd bolted her there with his gaze alone. And she didn't want to look away.

She moved to his side, all trepidation gone. The snake hissed as she approached, its body twisting and thrashing with more energy than before. Below its scaly body, a dark puddle of blood was sinking into the sand.

With the utmost care, she bent her head to the adder's. It watched her with one slit-pupiled, unblinking eye. Almost like a cat's. Almost.

Then she put its neck between her teeth and bit down, hard.

There was no cruelty in the action, no torture. It was quick and clean, like Cloudtail had taught her, like Thornclaw had taught Poppyfrost. Like Sandstorm had taught Honeyfern.

The snake went limp immediately.

Lionblaze stepped off of the body, shaking off the coils, and went to her side. After a moment of endearing hesitation, he pressed his muzzle to hers. His scent was tinged with the dry scent of the snake.

He was breathing hard: the only sound in the small space. Deep, even breaths. "I'm proud of you," he said in a low voice.

"It's not true," she said, watching the snake, feeling nothing. There was no triumph in this. Honeyfern was still gone. Nothing would bring her back, not even this revenge.

Lionblaze's brow furrowed with confusion.

"What you said before. About bringing me back." She turned and looked up at his concerned face.

The sun had come up fully now, burning away the fog, and it framed his face in gold. Every hair on his pelt was a burning strand of fire. She drank in the sight of him, feeling her wounded, broken heart pick up.

Lionblaze's eyes widened the smallest bit. "Yes?"

Cinderheart tucked her head beneath his chin, resting her ear against his chest, right over where his heart beat, strongly and erratically. Against his fur, she whispered, "You never lost me."

* * *

**So here's the deal.**

**When my fic _Sidestep _hit 300 reviewers, I said whoever had that honor would get a fic written by yours truly. Well, that honor went to Tufted, who requested a comfort-fic for Lionblaze and Cinderheart after Honeyfern's death. Unfortunately, due to general laziness on my part and continuously-breaking computers, I hadn't written it. **

**UNTIL NOW.**

**So here it is, in all its glory. I haven't read any books past like the third book in the third series, so I dunno if LionxCinder happens legitimately. I'd imagine so, since the Erins aren't exactly subtle. XD I guess this could be considered AU, then? Let's just go with that. XD**

**Anyway. Tufted, I hope you liked it. You have the patience of a saint, my friend! **

**R&R~**

**Shadow**


End file.
